Final Fantasy 16 Sales Did Not Meet “the High End” of Square Enix’s Expectations

Upon its highly anticipated launch last month, Final Fantasy 16 sold over 3 million units worldwide, with Square Enix stating shortly afterward that it considered the action RPG’s initial sales to be “extremely strong”. It seems, however, that the momentum of its sales has slowed down considerably since then.

As reported by Bloomberg, in Square Enix’s recent quarterly fiscal report for Q1 (April-June) of FY 2023/24, the company’s president Takashi Kiryu said that Final Fantasy 16’s sales did not meet “the high end” of Square Enix’s expectations. As per Kiryu, the PS5’s install base was partly to blame for the lower-than-expected sales.

With supply constraints no longer being an issue for the PS5, Kiryu says Square Enix will now be taking steps to try and boost the game’s sales among new adopters of the console.

Overall, the company’s operating profits have dropped 79%, from 14.4 billion yen to 3 billion yen. Though sales of releases like Final Fantasy 16 and Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster helped bring an increase in unit sales, costs of development for AAA titles (largely Final Fantasy 16) ate a large chunk out of the operating profits.

Final Fantasy 16 is available on PS5. A PC version is currently in development, but doesn’t yet have a release date. The action RPG’s development team has also said it’s “thinking about options” for post-launch DLC.